The streets of Vale were alight with protest. The many Faunus occupants of Basket Street spilled from their shacks, homes, and apartments, flooding the streets. They cried out as one, raising their voices to fill the slums with chants of freedom and equality. Their bodies, packed close and marching forward like a surging river, kept them warm in the biting cold. They became a sea of mottled greens, greys, and browns, the mundanity broken occasionally by the bright whites and reds of White Fang sympathizers and agents. Their bone-white masks flashed in the sun and their cries rang clearest among the rancor.
With such a strong Fang presence, one might expect Abraham to be attending for posterity, but no. At least, he wasn't on the street.
Wet, sloshing footsteps trudged through the sludge of the sewers beneath basket street. He led a long line of insurgents through the sewers of Vale, marching in unison towards a new kind of freedom. Many groaned about the stench, which was palpable, but Abraham's lieutenants were quick to silence them.
"How much longer?" Andre whispered to Abraham, his eyes most likely shifting under his mask. Abraham had come to know his paranoid mannerisms.
"We are close. Ten minutes." Abraham stated. Andre nodded and fell back with the other lieutenants in silence.
Abraham turned to Cinder, eyeing her. She had been acting… strange lately. More smug than usual, and with a new sheen of confidence behind her eyes. "You will be alone after this," he stated, his tone unsympathetically matter-of-fact, "We cannot continue down this path with a human at the helm. My comrades would not allow it."
She hummed, her gaze distant as if she was daydreaming. "I figured that would be the case."
Abraham grunted. Shouldn't she be worried her strongest supporters would be separating from her? There is no way she could be so secure with only Torchwick, and he would never be capable of what she has promised. Seclusion. Security. A place from which power can be projected, but not threatened. There is only one place Ozpin fears to send his personal child army: Mountain Glenn.
That incident with the train had shamed Ozpin. Vale saw the results of his probing and lampooned him for it, the media blasted him for days, then continued to grill him when he would not reveal what he had sent his little agents to uncover. Apparently he thought the truth— that he had sent children into the Grimm's maw just to see if it was harboring criminals and White Fang— was far more damning than the damage his mistake incurred. Since then there have been no such incursions into Mountain Glenn, and Abraham intended to take advantage of that. Cinder had shown she had some means of controlling Grimm, and had offered to ensure the safety of their new base in return for the assassination of Larun Marital. She didn't tell him what she wanted him dead for, but he suspected that Larun knew something he shouldn't. The ambassador had come to be known for his conspiratorial ramblings, but now Abraham worried his nonsense gibberish may actually hold some weight. At least it gave him the opportunity to get rid of that psycho Adam before he got the White Fang into any more trouble.
A pop could be faintly heard from the streets above. More pops. Gunshots in rapid, merciless succession could be heard even in the sewers below, though greatly muffled through feet of stone and dirt. A blast reverberated in the tunnel, shaking dust and pebbles from the ceiling. Abraham frowned. He spoke so haughtily of Faunus lives being tossed away for selfish benefit, but here he was, throwing Faunus to the police to cover the White Fang's escapade. Gritting his teeth, he clenched his fists and shook off the shame. Their sacrifices would not be in vain. Many would die, yes, but they would pave the way for all the Faunus of the future. He would make sure of it.
The Fang behind him trudged through the waste in grim silence. They knew what was happening above. Many had even spoken against his plan at first, but he had been able to sway enough in his favor. He could still see the conflict in the faces of those who had most vehemently spoken against him, even now, but he knew they would not speak here. Not yet, at least. Killing Adam did more than leave them one bloodthirsty maniac shorter, it made his more ambitious men respect him. They knew the safest path for the Faunus was under Abraham.
Eventually, after another hour of trudging through the muck, they had gained enough distance from Basket Street that the riots— though they were almost certainly ongoing— were no longer audible. They continued their march in silence for another hour before something new could be heard— something much closer. Hammers on rock, the loud engine and rapid pounding of a jackhammer. Voices. Abraham stopped and raised a hand, his people coming to a stop behind him.
Abraham eyed Cinder. She had promised nobody would be in this area, but that was clearly another lie. She shrugged, her expression indifferent. Abraham pointed to Andre and gestured for him to follow.
Abraham and Andre started once more through the tunnel, Cinder following close behind as Abraham figured she would. As they approached, his suspicions were confirmed. A construction crew stood around a hole in the wall of the tunnel, one which had likely opened when the Grimm had flooded the tunnel in the wake of the train that would breach Vale. It looked feebly patched with ramshackle planks and canvas stretching over the gaps. Stacks of bricks and bags of concrete and mortar lie in piles around the site, mostly untouched for the moment as the workers focused on smoothing the jagged hole to prepare it for a proper repair.
Abraham made no attempt to be stealthy as he approached the work site. He had no intention of ambushing a bunch of working-class civilians, especially considering the vast majority of them were fellow Faunus; bovine, bear, ox, elephant, and other such physically dominant types. They mostly regarded him and Andre with indifference, though a couple sneered. The scant few humans present at the site all flushed at his approach, though most had a look of determination rather than fear.
One of the few human workers— the foreman, judging by his badge— approached confidently with his hand up, as if he wasn't facing the leader of Vale's largest terrorist organization. He was a burly man with olive skin and a bald head that boldly reflected the many floodlights illuminating the work site. While not quite as tall as Abraham and Andre, he was plenty muscled to make up for it. "This is an active construction zone!" He shouted, his voice ringing off the tunnel walls, "Show me creds or get your ass off my site!"
Abraham smoothed his expression, containing his disgust as the human addressed him. "Get out of the way. We have to go through here." He growled, nodding toward the hole in the wall.
The foreman looked at him as if he'd grown a second head and did a double-take at the hole. "The hell are you talkin' about? Ain't no way me an' my boys're lettin' y'all through here, you'll open the whole damn city back up to the Grimm!"
"Move, human. If you do not, I will move you." Abraham growled.
The foreman eyed the three of them, the severity of the situation clearly creeping in as he took in the markings on their outfits and Andre's mask. He took a half-step back and began to sweat. Workers bristled and began to stand, some gripping tools. "B-boy, you better walk your ass back down the tunnel. We just want to do our job, this ain't a place for a brawl."
The workers approached, sledgehammers in hand, and stood menacingly behind the foreman.
Abraham raised his hands defensively and looked to the mostly-Faunus workers. "We are freedom fighters, brothers, and there are many more of us not far down this tunnel." He raised his voice, almost shouting, "If they cannot hear me now, they would certainly hear the scuffle. This is not a fight you want, nor is it one you can win."
The foreman scowled, sweat beading on his bald head. He looked to the other workers, all of whom bore a grim look of determination. Abraham could smell their fear, though, it suffused the tunnel even greater than the stench of sewage. He glanced at Cinder, who finally seemed to show something other smug indifference: Joy. Sickening. Andre seemed ready to fight as well, his hands twitching and jaw flexing as he clenched his teeth. Abraham scowled, realizing in that moment the fragility of his movement. Such aggression, even to his own people, the ones they were trying to make truly free. These are the people who hold up the pillars of his revolution? Suddenly wearied, Abraham addressed the foreman with his hands up, his voice pleading. "Don't you have a duty to your people?" He gestured to the workers white-knuckle gripping their hammers, "to protect them? To ensure they can all go home to their families with a healthy body? Maybe even a few extra Lien in their pockets?"
The foreman's eyes widened, then he screwed them shut. Abraham reached a hand out to him. He was close to breaking, he just needed a little pu—
A hammer batted his hand aside and, though his Aura blocked it, the pain struck directly to his chest. One of the workers, a towering bull Faunus, had stepped forward both to block Abraham and, with his other hand, to hand the foreman a sledgehammer. He clenched his jaw and grasped the hammer, puffing out his chest as he met Abraham's gaze. "No. We ain't movin'. No way, no how."
It was that moment when another lieutenant arrived with a small entourage, they had probably heard Abraham or been growing worried by his absence. They were all armed. Of course they were. Abraham's shoulders sagged. "Please don't make me do this."
"I ain't makin' you do nothin'." The foreman snarled.
Abraham opened his mouth, but Andre drew his pistol and shouted over whatever he had to say. "You are traitors to your own kind!"
Almost as if it were planned, that phrase was enough to make all the lieutenants draw their weapons and aim them at the workers. Abraham stretched his arms out, pushing down the barrels of his lieutenants.
"Y'all ain't my kind!" One of the workers shouted, their voice ringing out like a hammer striking the last nail of their coffin. Abraham turned to his lieutenants for just a moment, a moment brief enough that he would not see Andre lift a gun and dispatch a single round into the foreman's chest. Blood sprayed on the side of Abraham's face. He whirled around on instinct, the shot reverberating off the tunnel walls and making his ears ring. His lieutenants, either taking his movement as an order or acting on their own accord, opened fire on the workers. Abraham watched his men gun the people down in a matter of painstakingly long seconds. Blood covered every surface, the workers didn't even have a chance to fight. They were just gunned down where they stood, like animals. Was this a sacrifice, too? Like those civilians shouting and dying on the surface to cover their movements, was this necessary for the sake of the Faunus species?
Cinder was staring at him, smiling. He could see his revolution playing out in the reflection of her eyes. Fire. Inescapable fire. Too deep in the inferno, and the only way out is forward. The slaughter was already over, the bodies of the construction workers were already piled up, Cinder was already burning the bodies, they had already begun their trek through the subway and into Mountain Glenn. Abraham felt tired. He knew how it would end. It already had.